The present invention relates to punched adhesive tapes for semiconductor particularly suitable for use in semiconductor devices wherein semiconductor elements (chips) are bonded to lead frames, and also relates to the production of adhesive tape-bearing lead frames, to adhesive tape-bearing lead frames and to semiconductor devices fabricated using the adhesive tape-bearing lead frames.
In resin-molded semiconductor devices, adhesive tapes are now mainly used as the adhesives for bonding semiconductor elements (chips) to lead frames.
If the adhesive tapes used for the above purpose contain contaminants or defects, the reliability of semiconductor devices may be lowered. It is therefore necessary to inspect adhesive tapes for contaminants and defects before applying the adhesive tapes to adherend lead frames, to avoid using adhesive tapes containing contaminants or defects.
A conventional, simple method of removing contaminants is to cut off the parts containing contaminants from adhesive tapes, to obtain contaminants free adhesive tapes. This method however requires many hands and is inefficient.
According to an alternative for preventing contamination, the regions containing contaminants are marked with seals, ink or the like, to avoid these regions and use other regions for bonding. This method also needs improvement since the adhesive tapes may be contaminated by the marking, causing the contamination of adherend chips.
The object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to provide an adhesive tape for semiconductor which is excellent in work efficiency, a method of producing an adhesive tape-bearing lead frame using the same, an adhesive tape-bearing lead frame, and a semiconductor device fabricated by using the same. As a result of study to prevent contamination without cutting adhesive tapes nor contaminating them by marking with seals or ink, we have hit upon an idea that punching adhesive tapes at or in the vicinity of the regions containing contaminants or defects is excellent in work efficiency and overcomes the above problems, and we have consequently completed the present invention.
That is, the present invention provides a punched adhesive tape for semiconductor, which is made of an adhesive tape comprising a base film and an adhesive layer provided on one or each side of the base film, and is pierced with at least one punched hole which is made by punching the adhesive tape at or in the vicinity of a region where the adhesive tape contains a contaminant or a defect.
The punched adhesive tape for semiconductor of the present invention is suitable particularly for bonding semiconductor chips to lead frames, and also has various other uses in the fabrication of semiconductor devices, for example, to bond semiconductor chips to TAB tapes.
The present invention further provides a method of producing an adhesive tape-bearing lead frame, comprising detecting the punched hole in the punched adhesive tape for semiconductor, punching the punched adhesive tape for semiconductor, with a part thereof containing the punched hole skipped over, to punch out an adhesive tape piece from the punched adhesive tape for semiconductor, applying the adhesive tape piece to a lead frame, with one adhesive layer of the adhesive tape piece adhering to the lead frame.
The present invention further provides an adhesive tape-bearing lead frame produced by the above-described method.
The present invention further provides a semiconductor device fabricated by using the adhesive tape-bearing lead frame.